West Oaks

“The movie finally makes a reasonable amount of sense now” after 4 years of work on it, writes producer Joseph Graham on the Indiegogo fundraising page for Nothing Really Happens, a new independent feature film from local production company The Monster Closet. What is this filmed-in-Houston movie about? It’s not entirely clear from the trailer. If you blink a couple times in the middle of it though, you’ll miss a couple of images from a scene filmed at the Wind Chimes Shopping Center on Westheimer at Eldridge, where a vacant storefront was apparently dressed up as a locked-up mattress store for filming. A notice posted to the front of the shuttered shop from a Houston “Department of Health” flashes by too fast, but if you freeze-frame it the words on the official-looking document may — or may not — help a little bit to explain the movie’s plot (emphasis in the original):

The little and not-so-little red dots on the map above show off sites on the EPA’s list of plants and refineries required to have a Risk Management Plan due to their potential for accidental hazardous chemical releases — with the larger dots showing the places that have already had an accident (or, in some cases, as many as 43). Clicking each dot will tell you what the facility’s name is, as well as how much toxic or flammable material it stores on site (to the nearest thousand pounds or so).

The Union of Concerned Scientists and t.e.j.a.s. put together the interactive map as part of a report released late last week, which compares the EPA’s data on air quality and cancer rates in a few neighborhoods on the west side of town (specifically in Bellaire and in the West Oaks and Eldridge area, just inside Hwy.6 near the Barker reservoir) with the same data in a couple of east side spots (Galena Park and Manchester).

How long will the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema be sticking around at the West Oaks Mall, now that Regal Entertainment Group has announced it’s going to open a new 14-screen Edwards Theatre multiplex there in the fall of 2012? A spokesperson for Triple Tap Ventures wouldn’t say directly, explaining that the beer-and-movie house will remain open “throughout the planned construction and into the foreseeable future.” But the Alamo Drafthouse owner doesn’t appear to be looking as far ahead as the mall’s owners, who’ve already announced that the 6-screen theater will close after the new theater is opened.

The Edwards multiplex will go into the mall’s west wing, where Mervyns used to be. Next door will be a new plaza with 3 restaurants and outdoor seating. Triple Tap reports it is still looking to open new Alamo Draft House locations both inside the Loop and around the Houston area.